The Cost of College

What kind of society will be created by the ever-rising cost of a college education in the U.S.? In Comment this week, Nicholas Lemann looks at the conversation taking place during the Presidential election about tuition and loans, and considers the future:

This graduation season, the national conversation seems to be going into apocalypse mode about the cost of higher education. Tuition has been rising faster than the inflation rate for years, even through the Great Recession. State governments are cutting funding, and thus pushing more students into the loan market. Student-loan debt is also rapidly rising. Hundreds of thousands of students start college every year, but only about three-fifths get a degree. The job market for graduates is weak. Two years ago, Steve Eisman, the investor who made a fortune shorting subprime mortgages, gave a speech, entitled “Subprime Goes to College,” in which he predicted a 2008-style meltdown at for-profit universities, driven by systemic defaults on student loans. That prediction is now being applied to traditional colleges, too. Why, then, are both candidates proposing to further inflate a bubble that’s about to burst?

Is there really a bubble? Or are there some colleges and universities—the country’s top schools, the ones turning out President after President—that offer an education that’s actually under-priced? Read the full Comment, and share your thoughts below.

Illustration by Tom Bachtell

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